Because Christianity is bigger than Biblical manhood or Biblical womanhood (Blog of Retha Faurie)

Posts tagged ‘gay’

At first glance, I thought it had nothing to do with my work. “The Nashville Statement: A Coalition for Human Sexuality”is a document about LGBT issues. And while those issues are important and relevant in Christianity, they are not what this blog is about. But it comes from the Council of “Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” (CBMW), which exists to promote sexism as a religious requirement for Christians1. Then I looked at it a second time.

The Nashville statement is insidious. It purports to be about gay and transgender issues. But, between the lines, it assumes and promotes sexism.

To make it even worse, it has not a single Bible text, making the meaning even vaguer. (For example, suppose someone said: “Man and woman were created to be different – Gen. 1:27″. I would understand it differently from if he said: “Man and woman were created to be different – Eph. 5:22″. The latter takes a text out of the “all believers should submit to one another – Eph. 5:21” and “God shows no favoritism – Eph. 6:9” context to promote sexism.)

( I mention same-sex child molesting in one example in my “examples” point because a church that accepts their leaders doing it is obviously accepting same-sex acts, even criminal ones. This is not something all, or most, people with same-sex attraction do, nor does the article imply it.)

“Every figure, church and denomination that has publicly endorsed homosexuality — ‘gay Christianity’ — and transgenderism has without exception been egalitarian. This does not mean that every egalitarian endorses these sins, but it does mean that embracing egalitarianism puts you in tension…” – Owen Strachan

It is commonly asserted by complementarians that egalitarianism is a slippery slope to endorsing same-sex acts, transgenderism and the world views of the LGBT community, while complementarianism is a safeguard against it. I do not agree with them. Note that, for the sake of this article, I need to focus on people who endorse female subordination and accept same-sex activity/ LGBT community views, or who are egalitarian and does not. This does not say what your views should be, and except on transgender theory, not even what mine is. It asserts that the alleged tension is not there for an egalitarian who does not endorse ‘gay Christianity’ (Strachan’s word choice, Strachan’s quotation marks).

The two issues depend on:

1) Different words to explain:

Egalitarian/ complementarian debate focuses on the meanings of words like ezer (helper), kephale (head), and hupotasso (submit). The former two are used in the Bible to describe God himself. The gay debate focuses on terms like eunouchos (eunuch), arsenokoites (literally a combination of man + bed as a verb) and malakos (effeminate/ soft). None of these describe God in the Bible.

2) Different Bible Passages:

Two of the about 5 texts that (seems to) speak against gay acts are in the ritual law of the Old Testament, while none of the primary texts on female subordination are. The three New Testament texts used for discussing gay relationships are mostly about seriously sinful behavior and attitudes, and the issue is exactly what it is that those texts see as wrong.(more…)